Tanner's first product, L-Edit, was launched in 1988 shortly after Dr. John Tanner realized the need for cost-effective and easy-to-use EDA tools that would give the engineers the performance and flexibility to handle complex design flows and help speed their design concept to silicon.

Q. What products do you provide?A. Tanner EDA software includes:

L-Edit®, an integrated line of products for layout editing, verification, and placement and routing of analog/mixed-signal ICs, ASICs and MEMS. An intuitive and programmable interface minimizes the user's learning curve. Support for industry-standard file formats such as GDSII, CIF, DXF, SPICE, and EDIF allows for convenient interfacing with other tools.

HiPer Verify®, which automates design rule checking for deep submicron manufacturing. Foundry-compatible rule support allows it to run CalibreÂ® and DraculaÂ® foundry files natively, without conversion or modification.

Q. Who are your customers?A. Our 5,000-plus customers include a number of leading integrated circuit providers worldwide as well as a number of publicly and privately held fabless chip companies. Most of these companies are developing circuitry for biomedical, imaging, power management, RF, wireless and Bluetooth applications. Specific users include Catalyst Semiconductor, Honeywell, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NEC, Sarnoff Corporation, Ricoh Company, Xerox Corporation and many others. See our customer section for more information on how customers are using our products.

Q. How do your products compare to those from Mentor and Cadence, for example?A. Our tools are compatible industry-standard data interchange formats, including GDSII, EDIF and CIF. Many customers enjoy the price-performance advantage of our tools and integrate them into a multi-vendor flow. Other customers find that the Tanner EDA software meets their needs completely and prefer the simplicity of working with a single vendor with integrated support.

Q. Do you have relationships with foundries so that our design can be manufactured more easily?A. Yes. As our product line has evolved, we heard from customers that compatibility with foundries is very important. Tanner's HiPer Verify program, for example, includes support for foundry rules and can run industry-standard Calibre® and Dracula® files without conversion or modification. Tanner has a long-standing relationship with MOSIS, enabling customers to create prototype silicon or small amounts of silicon cost-effectively.

For more detailed information on our foundry partners visit the Foundries page.

Q. I think I might have used Tanner software for a university project. What's different about them today?A. Tanner EDA software has come a long way since our first programs were sold in 1988. Tanner software initially ran under DOS, were limited to 16 layers and orthogonal geometry, had CIF output only and no schematic front end, simulation, or verification backend tools. Today, Tanner EDA offers designers a complete integrated solution to get from initial concept to silicon including schematic entry, Spice simulation, schematic driven layout, programmable cells, all angle geometry, interactive DRC, hierarchical Calibre-compatible DRC, extraction, LVS, standard-cell place-and-route, and a host of productivity features. If you haven't used our tools recently, about the only thing you will recognize in our latest suite is how quick to learn and easy to use they still are, even with a tremendous amount of new functionality. See our product section for more information about Tanner EDA solutions.

Q. Can I use Tanner software for part of my project, then use other tools for other parts?A. You can use Tanner sofware for your entire design flow, or use them for part of it. Our products are complementary to those from other vendors.

Q. What kind of customer support do you offer?A. We provide in-depth and personalized customer service, which sets us apart from the typical software company. Our in-house designers and specialists spend a significant amount of time working with customers to maximize the capabilities of Tanner Tools for their unique designs. We also have, over the years, used input from customers to shape new versions and capabilities for our tools.

Q. What is the learning curve to use Tanner EDA software?A. Tanner EDA software is intended to be very easy to use, because our founder, John Tanner, found other vendors' solutions to be exceedingly complex and difficult to use. Some customers have told us they are up and running with Tanner in a half hour or less out of the box. The tools use a simple interface and since they are Windows-based, the look and feel is intuitive to PC users.

Q. What parts of the IC design flow do you cover?A. Tanner Tools provide a full design tool suite for IC design, including schematic capture, analog simulation, mask layout, standard-cell place and route, and verification, including design rule checking, circuit extraction and comparison of layout versus schematic netlist. See the Tanner IC Design Flow diagram for more information.

Q. How often do you release new versions of the tools?A. We have major releases every 12-18 months with other updates provided several times yearly.

Q. As a current user, do I receive updates of the tools?A. Customers with the maintenance program receive updates in addition to the telephone and electronic customer support provided.

Q. How are your tools sold?A. We sell our tools through a direct sales force in North America, Japan, and Taiwan and through distributors in Europe, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Malayasia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, and Israel.